Wow. This ludicrous horror spoof, set in 1989, about a young black woman attempting to climb the ladder in the music video industry just as white kids are once again starting to spend money on R&B, starts off as a pretty hip social satire on selling out and the commodification of race, in which the cultural evil of needing to get a weave to have “good hair” is transformed into the supernatural evil of having to feed it fresh blood to keep it. Eventually it settles down into an action/horror satire, and actually remains pretty entertaining throughout, considering the silliness of the basic material and how straight-faced they play it. Along the way it touches on racial tensions inside of black society, and probably ultimately could have had a lot more to say. But what it said, it said well, and it was kind of nice to see a movie with so many realistic three-dimensional depictions of black women, who comprise a good part of the cast, without seeming preachy or contrived—just kind of telling a story from a cultural point of view you hear about but don’t see firsthand very often. I liked it, it was worth a watch, even after it strayed too far into Buffy-style wink-and-a-nod over-the-top “horror” tropes. (Note: turns out to be from the same guy who made “Dear White People”, another film that dealt with race issues in a way that I really liked.)
